can you balance them by making them take power to operate? nothing in the game should be for free or unlocked from the beginning. At least give the option for it?

agree with the author

Would love this as well.

i find them balanced enough. Since they have no module slots for greater speed or productivity they use significantly more ore than regular miners. I use them mostly for Roleplay reasons.

I would agree that they are strong, though, instead of just making them take power, I would instead make the drones unlock alongside or even after the construction drones, as, in spite of their lack of module slots, their massive potential numbers can swiftly outpace electric miner speeds before you even have electric miners. And the base being quite so large as it is enables the player to use numerous output sources far easier than the spaghetti of dragging out of a mining network. Perhaps a rebalance could be done as a separate mod that only modifies the content of this mod? giving drones a requirement of some form, be it resource (Fish or fuel), or power like other drones.